


Pilgrimage: The Wondferfull Tragedies and Comedies of Love

by alephthirteen



Series: Apostates and Usurpers [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Astra (Supergirl TV 2015) Lives, Bodice-ripping, Cults! Rebellions! Printing Presses! Art Patronage!, Darker Kara, Epic, F/F, F/M, Good Parent Lillian Luthor, It's the Renaissance, Lena Luthor is a Tease, Lena Luthor is crass, Lena and Lex on equal footing, Maids, Men's clothing being ripped off women, Protective Kara Danvers, SuperCorp, Swords, Women in men's clothing, swashbuckling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2020-07-25 21:37:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20032753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alephthirteen/pseuds/alephthirteen
Summary: The one where...Lena is an unhappy debutante in 1490s-Paris.   Lex has a position in the church and is hoping that Lena either marries happily or else he gets struck by a carriage so she doesn't take it out on him.  Lionel has designs on the papacy for Lex and the bribe money to make it happen.  Lillian would rather her children not fling themselves out windows.Kara, Alura, Astra and Baby Kal are escaped rebels and religious criminals from Krypton.  Kara becomes a cut-throat, avenging crimes against the poor.





	1. In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try and transplant SuperCorp and its attendant parts into a wholly different setting than my other yarns. Some ships will be different. Some non-traditional ships/elements will be present.
> 
> Starring
> 
> MORTALS:  
Alexandra D'Anvers, the dashing daughter of a merchant from Antwerp  
Elizabeth D'Anvers, the matriarch of the D'Anvers and a major patron of the arts, medicine and charity in Antwerp  
Kara D'Argo, a sellsword from a village past the edge of the world  
Astra, who has no interest in a human alias  
Elena "Lena" Luther, the outspoken, foul-mouthed ward of Lionel Luther, richest man in Christendom  
Alexander Luther, the exasperated older brother and absentee clergyman  
Margarita, Lena' Luther's scrappy (and sultry!) Spanish handmaiden
> 
> DEITIES:  
Rao, the (basically stand-in) God mentioned on the show  
Flamebird, the resurrection goddess from the comics  
Vhoc, the death god from the comics

**ASTRA (Krypton, 1472 AD)**

"Tell me a story, Aunt Astra."

Opening one eye, I look at my niece. I suppose that is what Alura and I looked like, back at Kara's age. There were few opportunities to see recordings or holographics of ourselves and neither of us realized that closest thing we had to a mirror was each other 

Kara is trapped at the half-point between a child and a woman.

The part that will one day be a woman seduced a door guard tonight with a lift of an eyebrow, a touch of fingers to the back of the hand and a laugh, manipulating him so skillfully that I would've recruited her for an operative. No one with a soul would have thought her a full, capable woman but he seemed to see the parts he wanted in sufficient quantities. Seeing his eyes rake her body made killing him far too easy.

The part of Kara so lucky as to still be a child cackled with delight the other morning when she realized she could perch the hydration ration tube between her breasts so she could drink from it with both hands free to read.

Checking that I've secured the kinetic impeller's clip, I put my rifle on the blanket beside me. 

"Aren't you a little old for stories, Sparkle?"

"Last time we were here," Kara reminds me, gesturing to the ruins. "...I wasn't old enough to enjoy whatever story you told me."

"I suppose not," I chuckle. "Close your eyes, then! I'm not telling a story for babies to a girl your age," I tease.

"Fine," she huffs.

> **"When Krypton was new, when Rao's first fire had just been sparked, the cosmos was already old. Trees had sprouted, grown and died. Animals had been born, lived, made more lif-"**

"You can just say fucked."

I laugh.

"Too much time with soldiers and criminals, little one."

Kara smiles and shifts in her bedroll.

"Wouldn't want it any other way," she sighs.

_ That girl should sleep under crystal windows, not here in the muck. _Kara never asked to join her parent's crusade. She was never asked if she wanted to be a part of my little revolution, if she wanted to burn down the wall between the Great Houses and Rankless and reveal the lie we had all lived.

Yet she did. Without complaint. 

Kara's not a soldier, not really. The violence I live every day slows her. She fights through the pain that comes with taking a life and she keeps up, but I move easily through it...colder and emptier at my core, I suppose. War this cannot be her whole life. Perhaps her bravery can be used in better ways.

> **"And the more life there was, the greater the beauty. The variety. The power. Things were born, they lived, they died. Until one day, one of the oldest and cleverest of those animals--the Tsalli--did not die. It left. Its body changed. It could do amazing things. So it ran. Ran from death. It went past the sky, past the stars, past the black. Disappeared. One by one, things that should have lived and died, left for somewhere else. Many years later, when the first Kryptonians looked up at the sky and whispered a prayer, we were answered by the Endless. What name he had when he was Tsalli, we do not know. But he called himself Rao when he spoke to your ancestors, Kara."**

One of my soldiers draws her ration knife across the stone floor--hard--registering her displeasure with a ghastly shrieking noise.

"That's blasphemy, aunty," Kara yawns.

I shrug.

"Scientists know no such word," someone behind me adds. "Blasphemy is what small minds call big ideas."

I startle and Kara does too, bringing her weapon up quicker than I expected.

"Going to shoot your own mother?" Alura asks.

"No," Kara scoffs, setting her weapon aside.

Alura squeezes my shoulder.

"Thank you for watching her."

"Always, sister."

Kara tosses her mother a ration kit. 

Whoever built this bunker was serious. They must've expected the war to last centuries because there's food down her to feed cities. Not many systems worked when I unsealed it. The inventory system did, at least, and environmental loops. So we had air and the robots could fetch us food.

"How is Lara?" I ask.

"Screaming," Alura teases. "But close."

"Fifty thousand years," I murmur. "The baby?"

"Healthy. Strong. Everything looks perfect," Alura admits.

Her lips draw into a tight line. I know my sister better than most and she doesn't merely work the law, she adores it. She has since she would correct me when we played Nakt or threw dice for each others' sweets. Unjust laws and cruel punishments turn her stomach in a way that is entirely personal, not professional.

"What about Jor-El?" I joke.

"Losing his mind...as fathers always did back then, I suppose."

I nod.

"I'll gather my people. If they're smart, they'll strike during the childbirth."

"So optimistic," Alura teases.

"Please don't give the enemy strategic advice, Astra," Kara whines. "They're dumber than you and I prefer it that way."

* * *

"Father!" Kara screams.

As he sinks to his knees, flesh sizzling, I find the sniper and fire, spraying the rock behind her with blood and gray matter

I don't turn my scope away until I see her fingers stop twitching.

Kara drops a shield spike and dives, sliding along the dust as the impact after impact strikes the shield, making its field crackle and filling the tight space with the smell of ozone. She snags her father's jacket and drags him into the niche I'm huddled in. 

"You just had to give them advice!" Kara hollers.

"Non…" I huff, firing on one of the vehicle's exposed engines. It disintegrates in a brilliant, multicolored blaze.

"Has never…" I fire again, dropping an officer and a medic foolish enough to line up for me. Their column falters.

"...done anything _ remotely _smart before. I would know."

Zor-El laughs.

"I'd say you should have married better but Alura already was married and there's only one me…" he jokes.

"You always were a smug little shadowfucker…" I grumble.

Kara's weapon is forgotten beside her. Her father's hands gripped tight in hers, she shakes her head as if she could say 'no' and he wouldn't be allowed to die.

"It's all right, little bird," he wheezes. "We did it."

"No," Kara sniffs. "You did."

He laughs, such as he can with most of his lungs burnt solid.

"I just turned some dials, Kara. Your mother needs you. Go!"

He looks over at the ship. The last ship on the planet. The only ship in a thousand light years that can _ possibly _escape the planetary barrier and the picket fleet.

Kara looks up at me and I nod.

"Go, Kara. I'll stay with him. Get your mother and the baby to the ship."

"The baby?" Zor-El asks.

"Fine," I laugh.

_ Better than fine. _

Little Kal-El's wailing can be heard over the hiss of lasers and the shriek of plasma bolts. The best soldiers I ever served with--everyone I trusted--are with them. A hundred and fifty of the best Krypton ever had, just making sure that if nothing else, they get aboard the ship.

Living proof that Kryptonians can still be born...not just grown.

* * *

I float. It is cold, but I do not freeze. There is no air, but I do not choke.

"Astra In-Ze!"

I turn my head and see it: a star. Small and brightly-lit. Black and green, like the moss on a rock.

"You have done great things," the voice tells me.

The firestorms on the star's surface shiver and swirl in tune with the words.

"You are my vessel now, Astra In-Ze. We are Vhoc."

I wake with a scream.

In the dim quarters, I see Kara upright in her bunk. Her eyes are azure bonefires, casting light over her cheeks and the bedspread.

"Bad dream?" I ask her.

She sniffles and nods.

"Could say the same of you, Astra. Wait. Why are your eyes..." she mumbles. "They're sort of a black flame?"

I reach up to my face, feeling the heat pouring from my eye sockets.

"Yours are like that too, Kara."

* * *

**LEX ** **(Paris, 1490 AD)**

  
"I don't like it, Lex."

Lena takes the pitcher of water from the tray, dips her hand into it and palms cold water onto her neck and cheeks.

"Lee," I chuckle. "You don't have to. Father makes us do this."

"You're not at risk to be married off to the first fat old man with ripe farmland and soggy tits. Spend the rest of my life as a rag he wipes his cock on."

Her handmaiden--a pretty young Spainard--blushes scarlet.

"Leave us," I say. "Speak to no one, Margarita."

"Thank you, your eminence," she stammers.

She ducks her head and scurries off, closing the door with the smallest of clicks. Lena is stern. Within a week, the girl will move quieter than a ghost.

"Lena, my sister."

I sit on the chaise across from her and flick her between the eyes with my index finger. Her emerald eyes narrow and she's so angry, it's like the curls of her hair want to strangle me."

"Would I ever allow you to be some old fart's plaything?"

"Not plaything. Cockrag."

"You're as crude as your mother," I grumble.

It's a hard thing to imagine, Lionel breaking his vows to Lillian. What sort of brazen harlotry would even be required to make him look up from his ledgers and realize someone else was in the room?

"Probably just as beautiful, too…" Lena sniffs, preening her hair.

"Now," I sigh. "We have all the men of Paris, and half of Florence and Rome waiting on you. Father insists I introduce you to eligible bachelors, so stay on my arm...most of them won't get within ten paces of a priest. So they will keep a distance. They won't get a good look at you, either."

Straightening my robe and thrusting my arm out, I wait...and wait.

Lena is lazing on the chaise, her finger drawing idle circles on the velvet trim of her sleeve. She takes another palmful of water from the vase and sprinkles it on her collarbone and the top of her breasts.

"God save me," I mutter. "You are my _ sister." _

"It's an awful summer. I needed to cool down. You didn't have to look," she jokes.

"Very well," she sighs, standing up and looping her arm in mine.

We walk along the hallway, Lena's quick eyes making note of every footman and scullion and maid and each vase of flowers. I would call her a madwoman were it not for the fact that winter before last, I would have been gutted in my sleep if she had not noticed that the lass scrubbing my floor was not the same as usual. 

The sight of her precious Lena with a blood-drenched knife in hand standing over a would-be assassins body took ten years off Mother's life, I've no doubt. She demanded full control of all household affairs and father relented. We may have more imbeciles around than before, when father changed servants almost daily, but they're trustworthy.

"The maid on the right is new," Lena whispers.

"Problem?" I ask.

"No. She's here because mother's butler fucks her."

"Lena!"

It's one thing for her to be coarse in private...

"God's truth," she chortles. "I can hear her cries from my window."

"Lucky slut," she adds, in a whisper I'm sure I was not supposed to have heard.

"You're blushing, Alexander the Great."

"My sister is a woman who God gave great intelligence...and all the tact and discretion of a dog licking between his legs. It's embarrassing."

"Her legs."

I merely groan in reply.

Two men open the door for us and the crier gets to work.

"Escorted by Cardinal Alexander Luther, presenting Elena Katherine Luther!"

"Lena," she snarls. "My name is _ Lena." _

"Count your blessings, sister sweet. We could be penniless and driven to monasteries, like cousin Martin."

"Hmph."

\----


	2. A Discoverie of Witches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THIS TIME ON "PILGRIMAGE" :  
Where Lena Luther gets a marriage proposal of the most unusual sort, Kara wakes up in her escape pod, Astra deals with some bandits, Alura was not above giving Kara, Astra and Kal an unfair advantage against humans, and Margarita spends some quality time with Alex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE #1:  
The surname "Danvers" is the Irish or English version of a habitation name (e.g. named after a place) for someone from the port city Antwerp, which is named Anvers in French. so someone from Anvers is _de Anvers_ which can be shortened to "D'Anvers." That's why Alexandra "Alex" D'Anvers is from a merchant family from Antwerp. 
> 
> AUTHOR'S NOTE #2:  
Yes, Lena Luther's family are _those Luthers_ and yes, her cousin Martin Luther will be making a royal mess of things in a couple years.
> 
> AUTHOR'S NOTE #3:  
There have been various 'enforcers' in the Catholic church over the years. The Inquisition itself was one but a variety of groups have tried to enforce the correctness of doctrine and operated in essence as internal police making sure everyone believes / teaches the right thing. Cardinal Lex Luther runs one of these non-inquisition branches and as such, is very powerful within the Church, which was at the time by far the most powerful, wide-reaching entity in Europe.

**ALEXANDRA D'ANVERS** **(Paris, 1490 AD)**

Elena Luther laughs at some old man's joke, her eyebrows--God's breath, those eyebrows--raised and her cheeks pinking. 

A line comes to me from the book I was reading in my chambers. One my mother rescued from a bonfire on a whim last winter.

_ Slender Aprhodite has overcome me with longing for a girl. _

Before I can restrain myself, I find my hand on my rapier's hilt and my vision red with either lust, rage or jealousy. Even odds.

I must get her away from that priest and away from these men.

"A drink, sir?" the maid inquires.

"Thank you."

She smiles, showing off dimples like the Valley of Milk and Honey and skin dark as rye bread and gleaming teeth.

Three weeks of bad road from Antwerp. I would kill for a good fuck...and may yet have to, unless I can find a discreet enough whorehouse.

The maid winks at me. She produces a tiny flask from her bodice. 

"These," she tells me, tipping a few drops into my drink. "Always help me with the pain when I bleed. Good day,  _ Master  _ D'Anvers."

If God himself had just struck me, I would be  _ less  _ surprised. Not one of these people had seen through my disguise--I would hope not, much as the binding on my breasts hurt--until she did. Not only that, but she saw my scowl for what it was.

I seize her hand.

"Is this how you talk to your betters?" I demand.

Her eyes widen, but not in fright, I realize. Her breath hitched too.

"It is," she husks, "when I want something from them."

"Servants quarters, or stables?" I whisper.

"Stables," she breathes. "Like animals."

She pulls her hand free and stares at me, a mask of rage upon her face. One of Lionel Luther's guards is here, looking between me and the girl. 

"Come on you," he growls, seizing her arm. 

I bring my blade out and have the point on his Adam's apple before the maid can speak to complain about the rough treatment.

"It was a misunderstanding, man. She is forgiven. Is this how you would treat a maiden in your master's service? Like a mongrel bitch to be dragged around by her neck?" I demand.

"I certainly hope nothing would happen to her virtue, around such filth as yourself."

He swallows, nicking himself on the tip of my blade.

"Terribly sorry, sir."

He releases her arm.

"Good."

Elena dashes over in a swish of violet silk skirts and emerald eyes and inky curls. Her brother hurries behind her, cardinal's robes so stiff and starched there's a crackle when he moves. His eyes are hazel--like his mother and father's--and though no less keen than his sisters, are less interesting by far.

They share a family intellect but little resemblance. Meaning that Elena is not merely Lionel's ward, she's his bastard daughter. Fascinating.

"What is the meaning of this?" Elena demands.

"Master D'Anvers," the maid stammers. "He asked me something. I didn't understand his question. A few cross words, nothing more. Forgive me, madam."

"Not you, Margarita," Elena sighs.

She rounds on the guard.

"Tell me, what do we pay you for?"

"I'm a guard, madam."

"Ah," Lena replies, her painted lips curled to make the sound pop. "What is a guard, again? Poor uneducated girl that I am, I thought they made people safer."

"Sister…" Cardinal Luther begins.

Three men have more power than he does in the church and yet he stares at his sister with all the confidence of a man hoping to capture a tempest with a teacup.

"Run along, Margarita. Make sure I have clean sheets," Elena commands.

Elena steps closer. Her brother reaches to restrain her, catches himself, and presses his hands to his sides.

"If I find your hands on my handmaiden again," she purrs in the guard's ear. "You'll wake up with your cock stuffed down your throat, held in place with the stumps of your wrists."

"Yes, madam."

He excuses himself a heartbeat later.

She turns to me, all smiles.

"Well, how could I turn down such a brave gentleman? A dance?"

"A blessing from God, I would think," I reply.

As we twirl around the room, palm to palm, fingers entwined, I realize I have been discovered yet again. Her eyes are locked on my chest, in a place where she should not realize there's anything to see. Her pupils are wide and glistening and not from belladonna, either. This woman didn't even apply rogue for her own debut.

"I hope it doesn't hurt much, my lady," she jokes.

"Say nothing," I command. "To anyone."

"Why would I do that?" she chortles. "Why do I owe you that?"

"Because Alexandra D'Anvers cannot marry a woman, but I can."

Her emerald eyes go wide.

"You would do that?"

"My mother can have a dowry here in a fortnight. She'd be glad to do it. Glad to distract me from my mis-adventures. Unless you'd rather one of the other men here?"

"I'd rather wash the Devil's balls" she whispers. "I'd rather fling myself into the Seine than marry them. I'll have you know that I had quite the spinsterhood planned."

"Come with me, and you may live as you like. Lie with me, or not. Live with me, or not. But I swear you will always have my protection and my confidence."

"All that charity!" she teases.

"My mother taught me the value of good works. Gold is just a lump of metal, until you put it to use. What of your brother?" I ask. "Will he know?"

"Perhaps," she teases.

It would be unwise to illegally marry the sister of the Pope's left hand, in flagrant mockery of the very idea of carnal sin, without a proper chat first...unless I wish to vanish in the night like the Grand Inquisitor in Orleans did three weeks past.

Then again, he seems more afraid of his sister's temper than of God's wrath.

"If you're marrying me, you should know that I'll stuff your cunt with peppers if you call me Elena one...more...time," she warns me.

"Instead?"

"Lena."

I lift her hand to my lips and kiss it.

Going to one knee, I make sure the scabbard clinks on the marble, drawing everyone's attention. A hundred pairs of eyes turn to us. Lillian Luther's eyes twinkle at the head table. Lionel's eyes rake my skin, then turn back to the parchment in his hand.

Apparently I am an acceptable "husband" for his daughter. His reputation is not that of a man who tolerates anything he dislikes.

"Lena Luther, would you do me the honor of your hand in marriage?"

"I will."

  
  


**KARA D'ARGO** **(The Matterhorn, 1490 AD)**

  
  


I'm on the side of a mountain, still strapped into my escape pod. The viewport glass ejected as designed. For a ten-thousand year old ship, I'm more than impressed. The display shows the pod is fully intact, but for the missing glass and so is Astra's, though her vital sign uplink is blinking "disconnected". If we can salvage both pods, we can make a ship.

It seems the Community of Krypton, cult or no, knew how to build a starship. I suppose that explains how they settled six thousand, three hundred and nine worlds in a matter of centuries.

Somewhere a few light years from here, Alura is bawling because the crew voted to expel Astra, myself, and baby Kal. Lara is no doubt sedated. Favorite niece or no, I cannot imagine how painful it was to hand her newborn child to me.

Everything is white, howling wind and I cannot see.

"Astra!" I bellow.

Kal wails beside me.

"Shh," I purr. "Calm yourself, little prince."

A prince in name, anyway. Will anyone weep when the House of El's citadel is destroyed? Will we have any loyalists who doubt the "traitor" stamped upon our name?

"Astra!"

No reply.

Instead, I hear three thunderous clangs.

_ The code she taught me for close-quarters,  _ I realize.  _ What was three? One, that was just, alive. Two was alive, injured. Three was alive, engaged with hostiles. _

The data crystal Alura gave me clenched tight in my hand, I unsnap my restraints.

"Ship?"

"Present," the AI reports. "I prefer to be called Thera."

"Thera, then. Geographic scan. Three pulses, thermal, optical, ultrasonic resonance."

"Stand by."

While she works, I check the straps of little Kal's stasis pod. He gurgles unhappily, flailing his chubby limbs at me. I hold out my hand and he wraps his tiny hand around my littlest finger, struggling to close his grip.

"Be brave. You are a child of Erok-El, never forget that. A guardian of truth, a soldier for justice, a teacher of the peaceful ways."

He hiccups, drooling a little bit of his mother's milk--the last he'll receive--onto his chin.

I chuckle.

"I'll remind you, when you're old enough to remember it."

The pod's display lights up, showing me a gradually rotating view of my surroundings. Astra's pod transponder is shown a hundred paces up-slope, just across a deep crevasse. It also shows the temperature outside is cold enough to snap-freeze water.

I feel nothing, even in the thin, worn sleeping tunic was wearing when I was voted off the ship. Kal makes no sign he's cold in swaddling clothes.

_ What am I?  _ I wonder.

**_You would be strong on any planet,_** Flamebird replies, her melodic voice blotting out all other thoughts in my head. **_Here, under such a powerful yellow sun, you would be a goddess in all but name, even without me. Together…_**

_ Too much power for a little girl. _

** _We do not choose our companions lightly, Kara. I would never have bonded to you if I foresaw your betrayal of my cause. And I would forsee it. To me, time is just one more dimension. One more layer of glass._ **

Rather than think about my own enhanced body or the living universe who burned herself into my flesh, I plug my mother's data capsule in.

"Kara? Are you safe?"

"Yes, mother."

The projection inhales. So this is an AI-laced capsule. It's interpolating Alura's reactions based on her behavior when she recorded it.

"I'm sorry this happened," I tell the recording. "I miss you."

Stupid, perhaps...but I cannot tell Alura that face to face.

"I am not programmed to reply to that query," the AI intones.

"Where am I?"

"Planet 312-Kann/Byara. Scouted in the 31st year of the First Expansion. Rocky planet, nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere, geologically and magnetically active. Primary surface covering is saline ocean of liquid water. Biologically rich system of carbon-based, amino, DNA-coded life forms."

"Intelligent life?"

"One bipedal primate species during scouting period demonstrated possible intelligence. Due to a lack of return visits, their status is unknown."

_ No animal in this galaxy would rise to the level of 'hostile' if it was facing a soldier like Astra. It would barely rise to the level of 'lunch'. It's something intelligent she's fighting, or hiding from. _

"Cross reference archives with anything Alura recorded and mimic her patterns in all replies, please."

"Stand by."

The projection's posture changes, becoming my mother's mannerisms once more, not a calculated right angle.

"Kara, my dearest girl, my little bird…" it sniffles. "I was outvoted. Know that I never would have wanted this for you."

"I know."

"I managed to steal some probe time from the science team. The planet you're on hadn't been scanned in several million of its own rotations. It appears the pre-sentient species that was recorded has flourished. Their appearance is near-identical to Kryptonians, unlikely as that is. They occupy all major landmasses except the southern polar ones. They've created...heartbreaking beauty...and they've brutalized each other in ways that would shock a Jaakin flailbeast. We detected a variety of diverse pre-industrial civilizations, in several distinct locales, suggesting independent evolution, not cultural migration."

"Technology level?" I ask.

"Stone tools to steel tools and animal or water power, depending on culture and continent."

"Numbers?"

"Two hundred and fifty million."

"Government?"

"Scattered. Unable to pose planetwide resistance to yourself and Astra. Kara, my sweet, gentle girl...I know this will terrify you but as your mother, it's my job to tell you this. Not one being on that rock can break your skin. With…" she stalls at the idea of the goddess tagging along in my brain.

Flamebird was a legend before she burned herself into my brain. A goddess forgotten. Found in classic paintings and teenager's terrible love notes. The state religion of an empire eons dead.

"With your  _ passenger _ , you could escape the star going nova. Physically, you could hardly be safer. Trust your conscience. Be the kind soul you always have been. Lead them to a better way, hide from them, hide among them, bend them to your justice. I cannot tell you whiche one is right."

"Thank you, mother."

The projection nods.

"I was allowed to put your luggage, your suit and your weapons into the pod. I may have...threatened the cargo technician I was working with. Two of the ship's cargo containers were ejected with your pod. One contains the eggs and seed nutrients for a Vynauu city, rookery and farming outpost. The other contains a handful of Genosian relics. Ancient ones, Kara. From before our people lit our first fires. When you play this message, the transponders will power up."

Sure enough, two new glyphs twinkle on the map display.

_ Genosian tech on a primitive world. Splendid! Why not drop one of the Anti-Monitor's universe-splitters here on a timer, while we're at it? _

"Thank you, mother."

"I will love you forever, my daughter. I will make this right. We will stand hand in hand again, one day."

That I do not doubt. Mother's skill at bringing others to see her argument is second only to willingness to use the law and custom as brutally and powerfully as a hammer. If they do not agree to retrieve us, she will use some forgotten law to outlaw the eating of food unless Astra or I cook it, or something even crazier.

The projection reaches miniature, ephemeral fingers towards my own and I reach back.

"El mayarah."

"El mayarah, mother."

Kal mimics me, his tiny fingers reaching too.

"That's my mother, I say," tapping his nose with my finger. "Your aunt."

He burbles.

"You'll meet her later, little prince. Now...can you help me find this cargo pod? Maybe they have a baby's toy for you...one that only creates  _ small  _ alternate realities."

_ I really hope the Genosians never invented one of those. _

It's a futile hope. No race has ever thrown around technology and power so casually. The cataclysmic burst of energy that phased their planet out of existence and into a heavily-protected bubble of space-time curvature was an unofficial project or a prank, depending on the legend. The only reason the galaxy is not a battery in a light at one of their orgies is their war with Apokolopis, which forces them to play the part of the bulwark against the murderous horde.

I flip open the communicator.

"Astra?"

"I'm here."

"The hostiles you were fighting?" I ask

"Locals. Criminals, I think. Took me for a female of their species...a defenseless female at that. I didn't answer before because I was hoping these animals either spoke Standard or understood basic body language."

"Did they?"

"They'd be alive if they had."

"Apparently my mother dropped two cargo pods here, Astra. One is full of Genosian tech. About halfway down the slope."

The profanity she releases in reply is amazing. Never have I heard so many insults to my mother's character, judgement, and personality and certainly never from her beloved twin.

"Kal is on my back, Astra!"

"Hmph. If we're going to be raising him, he'll hear it anyway."

**MARGARITA (Paris, 1490 AD)**

Master D'Anvers throws me against the hay bale.

"So rude," I tease.

I reach out for her belt.

"No," she replies, swatting my hands away.

"Pity," I whine.

"No one can know I'm a woman."

"Fuck me like the stallion you are, then."

Steel sings on hardwood as she unleashes a small dagger. 

"Wai-"

Alexandra loops it into the strings holding my dress on and slices. She repeats the slash twice more, once on each layer of smallclothes.

Cotton flutters to the filthy floor. Slickness and heat trickles from my core.

"I like what I see," she murmurs, tracing her knuckle up my bare belly.

"Do you?"

"Spain's loss is Paris' gain," she jokes.

"There, I'd be on a pyre," I admit.

Her stroking stops.

"What for?"

"Witchcraft. Those drops in your drink...old family recipe. Did they help?"

She nods.

"Good. But the inquisitors would have my head if they knew I could make such potions and tonics, bind wounds, lift fevers… I've seen women killed for 'black magic' that was nothing more than good midwifery, even after birthing half the town. The one woman whose babe died would call witch and none of the others have the courage to protest."

She sheathes the blade.

"That will not happen to you. Not under my roof, not in the house of your mistress either."

"I know," she sighs. "That's why I did some...unpleasant dealing to place myself in Lena's household."

Her mouth twitches.

"Ambitious thing, aren't you?"

"You've no idea…"

Using a scrap of what once was my skirt, I capture her by the neck and pull her close. Her tall frame means that I can pull her onto me without her needing to kneel. Her lips taste like sherry and salt and her eyes are the color of honey, shot through with flecks of palest green.

Alex's fingers flutter on my opening, just for a moment, testing my heat. Then long, smooth, strong fingers slide in me to the last knuckle. How her fingers  _ dance!  _ My head falls to her shoulder.

"Good thing…" I pant. "That I'm your wife's maid."

"We might see each other rather often," Alex chuckles. "Now...scream for me, my little Spaniard. Make the saints blush."


	3. A Wheelhouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Lena ponders her upcoming marriage, where Alex recalls her roots, Alex takes care of her soldiers, and Maragrita has no bones...

**LENA I (Banks of the Marne River, 1490 AD)**

Alex's right eye cracks open. In men's trousers, with her long legs stretched out and the scabbard of her rapier perched beside her, she takes more than her share of space. 

"Are you well, my wife?"

_ God's mercy, how quickly she made that a habit. _

The only shred of decency she has respected is my maidenhead. She's not broken her vow to me in any way. I believe her. I can lie with her or not, live in her house or not. Rather selfless of her.. 

If I wished to disappear to a manor north of Antwerp, never to see her again, she would honor me. If I wished to live in her chambers, never donning clothes, never venturing farther than a tray of fruit by the door, she would do that even more happily.

She has made her case for the latter, God knows. I've seen things that would wrinkle the skin on Lex's bald head and heard cries that would shame devils and startle angels. 

Most distracting.

Margarita was useless the first week on the road. On the days she could walk, she was too well-fucked to focus her mind and on the other days, Alex stroked her cheek and whispered terrible -- though endearing -- poetry in her ear. She never looked happier but she scarcely had energy to move. 

To say I am jealous of the sounds that escaped my maid's tawny throat last night when Danvers' head was between her legs is an understatement. 

It goes far beyond envy. It's the eighth mortal sin.

"I believe I am going mad."

Alex straightens and her eyes meet mine. Eyes the color of brown bread dipped in honey. Margarita is nude and leaning against Alex's side, so content it's like she's a chicken after the butcher pulls the bones out. 

"Oh?"

"Three weeks with only two faces."

Alex's thumb strokes Margarita's cheek.

"It's a perfectly lovely face."

I sigh.

"As is yours."

_ Did I think that or say it? _

"Why thank you, milady. Your face…"

Alex chuckles.

"Words pale."

I blush. Not one of a hundred suitors at the ball made me blush.

"Whatever can I do to soothe you, my sweet madwoman?"

I pull back the board covering the door. Wheat, rye, and the men working it as far as the eye can see.

"The next town that has an inn, a tavern, or so much as an unguarded keg of ale, we stop there. And I want you dressed as a woman."

Alex nods.

"The guards? For this, we need an escort."

"We'll have to risk it. Leave them. Some of them might tell my father."

She frowns.

"Mine won't."

"Why not?"

"I...provide for their loyalty," Alex teases.

"Oh?"

"Wine, women and song, milady. Give a fighting man a purpose, give him those three simple things? He'll follow your orders like papal writ."

She slides the board back and stares at the field but I don't think she's seeing it. She's seeing something in her own head and that only.

"I've seen it. One of my oldest friends was a house guard. He had three little girls of his own. One day, my father and I were ambushed. Papa died almost instantly. Lucky arrow shot. but in the instant when someone lunged at me with a knife, Joseph gave his life as if I were his own daughter."

"Don't be afraid, little lady…" Alex murmurs. "Those were his last words. The rest of the guards had arrived then and were putting the killers down like the swine they were."

"What became his daughters?"

Alex sighs..

"It happened when I was eight but when I came of age, the first thing mother tasked me with in the business was providing those girls a better life.  Their daughters will be ladies and their sons, lords.

"What?"

Her smile shows all her teeth and right now, they look a bit too sharp.

"More than a few dukes with a noble name and not three coppers. Most of whom owe my mother all the money they don't have. Forgive part of the debt, give his men money to put wares in their shops and then I explain exactly how he will treat his new wife. His vassals have a fighting chance, she has a home, he has a wife with the common sense only common birth gives you. Everyone wins."

"Only common birth?" I tease.

"If I were to tear all but your underclothes off, throw you in the mud and leave you for a fortnight, would I find a corpse? Or would I come back to find a peddler? Because I've seen orphan girls the size of feral cats manage the latter."

"A very  _ angry  _ peddler," I hiss.

Alex smiles.

"I forget where you were weaned, don't I?"

I nod.

"God rest her, but I know my mother gave me strength. Not Lillian. The one who bore me. Somehow, I feel it in my bones. There's a time when I'll need it. Some awful day, one where a debutant would fail, I will thrive."

"I've no doubt, my love. No doubt."

The clatter of the wheels of the carriage against stones fades.

"We're near the town, but not there yet," Alex decides with nothing more than a peek out the window. "Stay here. We shouldn't have stopped. Might be an ambush."


End file.
